Human beings are actually made of stars, according to astronomers at the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in New Mexico. The group used the APOGEE (Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment) spectrograph to study the makeup of more than 150,000 stars across the Milky Way Galaxy and concluded that elements found in space compose a majority of human bodies.

“For the first time, we can now study the distribution of elements across our Galaxy,” said Sten Hasselquist of New Mexico State University. “The elements we measure include the atoms that make up 97 percent of the mass of the human body.”

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The findings came from analyzing the chemical components of nearly 200,000 stars. The results were organized into a a catalog that included the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and sulfur - or CHNOPS. This is the first time the CHNOPS elements have been measured for such a large quantity of stars.

The APOGEE spectrograph then evaluated the stars' electromagnetic spectrum light and dispensed it to reveal their elemental composition. The data is already aiding astronomers with understanding the galaxy's history and formation.

"Many of the atoms which make up your body were created sometime in the distant past inside of stars, and those atoms have made long journeys from those ancient stars to you," the Sloan Digital Sky Survey said in a press release.

"While humans are 65 percent oxygen by mass, oxygen makes up less than one percent of the mass of all of elements in space," the project explained. "Stars are mostly hydrogen, but small amounts of heavier elements such as oxygen can be detected in the spectra of stars. With these new results, APOGEE has found more of these heavier elements in the inner Galaxy."